iPhone Photography Tutorial – How To Create A Stunning Vintage Macro Flower Shot
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This image started life as a macro image of a spent dandelion. I used 6×6 and a macro lens. I was drawn to this particular flower, I loved the baroque aspect of the shape, the gentle decay that outlines the segments and the little wisps curling out the sides almost reaching out. I have titled this image ‘Shadows and memories’
Read this easy to follow tutorial and see if you too can create a similarly wonderful shot. Links to apps used in this tutorial is at the end of this article.
Step 1 – The Original Image
The first thing I did after taking this shot was to load it into Juxtaposer, I used a pre-prepared background, which was just a 6×6 image painted over with vintage gray in paintfx.
The Vintage Gray icon has been selected, this is what I used for the background to this image.
This is the Vintage Gray background in close-up.
Step 2
Using the erase function I removed the background around the dandelion and saved the mask image as a stamp. Erasing in Juxtaposer can be a little daunting at first, zooming in as much as you can and erasing carefully around the edges of your subject with the “fuzzy grey” eraser gives you the most control. I then zoom out and remove the rest with the “fuzzy white” eraser.
This is how the image looks at this stage, after removing the background.
Step 3
Whilst still in Juxtaposer I positioned the image to one side and added a stamp of the masked image; I used the flip top image function and then positioned and sized it how I wanted. This completed what I needed to do in juxtaposer and image was saved to the camera roll.
This is the saved image at this stage.
Step 4
Next, I opened the image in Decim8 and chose the precog1 FX. Decim8 is very hit and miss so I used the retry button to process the image several times until I found what I was looking for and again saved to camera roll.
I was happy with how the image looked at this stage following editing in Decim8.
Step 5
I wanted to add an aged, painted look to the image and this is where PhotoWizard came in. Using the FX tab I selected “Texturize”. I used texture 4 at aprox 75% and texture 5 at aprox 85%.
Texture5 was set to around 85%, as shown above.
Step 6
I then selected “Tile Texture” and selected the texture shown in the middle of the selection bar, at aprox 50%.
Step 7
To lift the image I used the light bloom effect, selecting white, and keeping the bloom and threshold on the lower end of the slider. I then saved the image to camera roll.
This is how the image looked at this stage after the adjustments above.
Step 8
In keeping with the aged feel and to add just an extra touch of texture, I loaded the photo into Pixrolmatic and chose the frame Pint for it’s rustic feel.
Final Image
Then I was happy with the final image and here is it above. This image combined all the effects that I wanted to achieve and I was delighted with it.
Links to Apps used in this article
4 Comments
Irene Oleksiuk
Mel, fantastic tutorial! Love all the details you give but now I’m going to have to buy some more apps!
mahoganyturtle
Thank you Irene 😀 have fun with the new apps!!
Reed
Great tutorial Mel!
mahoganyturtle
Thank you Reed xx